IngentaConnect 2.5: more power to the user
The latest release of IngentaConnect went live recently, and incorporates a number of new features designed to improve the research experience of our end users. This is broadly in line with the concept labelled as Web 2.0, which extols the virtues of user-interactivity and easy integration of online resources. “The IngentaConnect platform was very well-received on its initial release back in 2004,” explains Engineering Manager Leigh Dodds, “But, in the last two years, best practice in web development has undergone rapid evolution. With this latest release, the site is now back at the cutting edge. We're continuing to cautiously apply ‘Web 2.0’ techniques to improve the user interface, and embrace open data and social bookmarking. I'm particularly pleased that we've been able to deliver several user-requested features.”
New features of the site include:
Increased support for citation managers
Citation managers, also known as "reference managers", are used by researchers to store bibliographic citations, often in order to generate a bibliography but also simply to record articles of interest. Our new release enables researchers to download article records from IngentaConnect in additional formats including BiBTeX and RDF. We already made records available for download in ProCite and EndNote formats, and will be introducing other formats (including RefWorks) in the future.
New social software interoperability
Social citation software works similarly to citation managers, but enables citations to be managed online. They can be tagged with appropriate keywords for easy retrieval - and the key advantage is that they can be retrieved by other users of the chosen service, which is not possible with offline citation managers. Hence resources in specific fields can be easily shared by like-minded researchers.
Social bookmarking software is similar but broader; the content being bookmarked does not have to be bibliographic citations, but the tagging and searching functionality again makes it easy for users with similar interests to connect and discover new web content.
IngentaConnect 2.5 enables users to bookmark IngentaConnect article citations to various social bookmarking and social citation applications, with just one click. Current options are: del.icio.us, FURL, CiteULike, Connotea and Bidsonomy.
For more information on social software, check out this article in the March 2006 edition of eyetoeye: Social bookmarking and folksonomies for the baffled
Standardisation of branding and tools presentation
With the addition of so many new tools to the site, we needed to re-architect the way in which we present all these options to the user. In undertaking this process, we decided also to review how various other tools were being presented around the site.
The IngentaConnect site was originally architected and built before Google and other search engines became such a major factor in discovering scholarly content. Previously, users tended to arrive at the site either through the homepage, or at publisher-, book- or journal-level. From those entry points, users would drill down to reach the articles or chapters of interest to them. However, the majority of users now arrive directly at the article page, having been linked to it either by a search result, or from one of our linking partners such as an A&I database or a subscription agent gateway. As such, we needed to rethink the positioning of our tools to ensure that users are presented with a full feature set even if they haven't drilled down through the other content levels.
To simplify the presentation of the many available options, we have created a top-level menu in the right-hand navigation, which includes the following expandable menu headings: Print, Subscription options, Article access options, Export option, Linking options, Alerting options, Bookmarking options. Subdividing our full feature set into these groups has enabled us to clearly and intuitively offer a complete set of functions to all users, regardless of their entry point.
Read more about the rationale behind these changes in this blog posting from our All My Eye blog: Refining the article page
Advertising
With the landscape and funding of scholarly publishing rapidly changing (and with the Open Access movement gaining momentum), many publishers are looking for alternative revenue streams to help support traditional publishing activities and counterbalance subscription erosion. At the same time, the credibility and design of online advertising has improved such that it is no longer the frustrating distraction that it once was. To that end, IngentaConnect 2.5 introduces some discreet advertising to IngentaConnect, examples of which can be seen here, here and here.